Business &amp; IT Department BTEC. Organisational System Security - Describe the various types of threats to organisations, systems and data

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Introduction

Assignment 1 Describe the various types of threats to organisations, systems and data - P1 * Unauthorised access - This category covers internal and external threats. Internal threats are things such as: Magic Disks - A recovery or backup disk that has been modded to include viruses or key loggers. Man in the middle attacks - People extracting sensitive and confidential information whilst posing to be a customer, or a legitimate company. Implanting Key loggers - Applications designed to record key strokes and send them back to the hacker. External threats are this such as; Viruses - Rouge applications designed to damage or make a system vunerable Trojans - Applications designed to infiltrate a system often by posing to be a harmless file or embedded into another file. Piggybacking - A term given to people who use someone else's internet connection without authorisation. This is often undertaken by logging onto an unsecured network without permission. Phishing - Attempting to fool a user into believing you are a legitimate service attempting to gain sensitive information. * Damage to or destruction of systems or information Damage to systems can occur when devices fail such as hard drives failing or natural disasters occurring in the workplace that could result in damaged or destroyed places. Such as: 1. ...read more.

Middle

Counterfeit goods are becoming increasingly popular as the ease of ripping DVD's, Music and Software makes it easier to access. Counterfeit goods may cause loss of business for companies. The loss of business then results in businesses having to raise prices to make up for loss of profit. * Organisational impact Security threats can cause loss or alteration of essential documents that the an organisation may need to function correctly. Loss of business followed by loss of income can also occur, this ultimately could result in bad reputation from potential customers. Systems going down could result in companies being unable to contact suppliers and customers. Circumstances of 4 security related threats on organisations - p2 Phishing -This is the process of gaining information from someone by pretending to be a legitimate worker for a company and retrieving information for legitimate reasons. Phishing could result in customer details being leaked, distributed, and exploited. This could badly reflect on the company and lose the company business and income. Denial of Service - Denial of Service is a process that involves a hacker overloading a server which results in the server being forced to shut down. This could result in loss of potential customers and thus profit. Piggybacking - Piggybacking is the process of using a company internet connection without having authorisation to use it. ...read more.

Conclusion

And also as a countermeasure to attempt to catch anyone with malicious intent. Countermeasures Vermason could implement to protect network security - p4: Backups - Backups are an essential countermeasure in offices. If there was an electrical fire or other natural disaster that could result in loss of data, this would insure that all essential data such as databases the company requires to undertake work related tasks are still there aswell as contact, supplier and customer information so that they do not need to be re-acquired. Passwords - Passworded systems can be implemented to secure individual workers within the company, it firstly provides an element of data security for each individual (eg; sensitive information that may be kept on a user account) and also holds each user responsible for there own actions on the computer under there own user account. More importantly; passwords ensure that only legitimate employees have access to important company files and other such potentially confidential information. Firewalls - A firewall would prevent unauthorised access from outside the network. It does this by scanning data packets coming onto the computer and ensuring that they are safe, it also is responsible for actively preventing virus's such as Trojans being downloaded from the internet and onto the network computers. Installing a firewall would prevent hackers from accessing the network and stealing data or causing damage. ?? ?? ?? ?? Chris Leversha - Page | 1 - 07/10/2010 ...read more.

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